By Ali Imran
ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue, Shaukat Tarin said Friday that the government had put in place comprehensive roadmap, focusing on 14 special sectors of economy, to ensure planned, inclusive and sustainable economic growth in the country.
Addressing a press conference here, the minister said that it was after the year 1972 that such a strategy was being presented by the government under which short, medium and long-term plans were being devised by working groups with the consultation of stakeholders and their implementation would be monitored.
The minister said that from September, performance in these 14 sectors would be monitored and prime minister would be given briefing about the execution of the plans every month. He said the exercise was aimed at accelerating growth rates from 3% to 6% in three years, keeping inflationary expectations subdued, generating employment opportunities, and reducing poverty by strengthening social safety net. Hence, the minister said, the plans do not focus only on devising strategies but also on ensuring their implementation, which he said was unprecedented.
He said that there were growth cycles of 4 to 5 years, but the country could not sustain it due to inconsistency, hence this strategy was aimed at bringing stability and sustainability in economic policies and performances. He said that making this comprehensive plan was the organized way of moving forwarded as is being practiced in developed countries.
He said, if there was no plan, everyone would be going in their his/her direction, hence would lead the country to nowhere, so these short, medium and long term plans have been devised with the help of all stakeholders to go on right direction.
The minister said that economic experts of Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) would be helping different ministries to implement the plan, hence there was no need to have fresh inductions in the ministry. He said Economic Reform Unit at the Ministry of Finance would be facilitating these activities.
Talking about the performance of economy, the minister said that the economic indicators were showing positive results citing Business Confidence Index (BCI) Survey that indicated that the overall BCI has increased by 59%, adding that textile exports also went up by 17 percent whereas the country was now exporting mobile.
Minister for National Food Security and Research Syed Fakhar Imam on Friday said the government was striving to ensure proper rate of returns to farmers for their produces to improve their living standards as well as maintaining sustainable agriculture growth in the country.
Imam said that special focus was being paid on up-gradation of research institutions to bring the quality of local scientist at par with international standards for benefiting local extension and growers. He said that proper policies of current government was bearing results as all major crop like wheat, rice, sugarcane, maize and other minor crops witnessed significant increase during last season, adding that due to timely announcement of minimum support price of wheat, local grain output increased by 2.2 million tons.
Meanwhile, other crops including rice output increased by 1 million tons, maize by 700,000 tons and sugarcane output also increased, he said adding that due to sustainable wheat output, local demand and supply would likely to remain on smooth position.
The government had announced intervention price for cotton crop after 8 years, he said adding it would encourage and protect the local farmers and help in enhancing its output as cotton was an important cash crop of the country and a vital source of raw material for local industrial sector.
Imam said that government was striving to ensure the provision of inputs on affordable rates, besides extending the outreach of research and extension services to the doorstep of farmers, adding that it was expected to achieve 10 million cotton bales during current season.
The minister said that agriculture sector was badly neglected by the all previous governments and was not included in national main stream from last 20 years, adding that agriculture sector was growing with an average of 4 percent from 1960 and during last 20 years it was gradually on declining trend.
During last financial year, despite COVID-19 Pandemic, under the special directives of Prime Minister budgetary allocations for agriculture sector was increased, adding that measures were taken to promote mechanization of agriculture sector.
The government was also providing subsidies for the construction of water channels, purchase of laser land leveler, adding that in order to involve the large bulge of youth in agriculture, agriculture loans would also be provided under prime minister’s Kamyab Jawan Programme.
